AvTalk Episode 247: He’s a stowaway!

AVT 247 Transcript
EPISODE 247
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello, and welcome to episode 247 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:17] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Hello, Ian. How's it going?
[0:00:19] IP: Hello, Jason. It's going well. It's not been long since we last chatted.
[0:00:23] JR: Yes, it has only been five days, instead of the usual seven. Even fewer things
have happened than usual, but we've got some things, including one we've been waiting for a
long time to confirm.
[0:00:35] IP: Yeah.
[0:00:37] JR: You sound unsure. Did it not happen?
[0:00:39] IP: I don't know what we're talking about.
[0:00:41] JR: Okay. You'll remember when we get to there. It's the third bullet point.
[0:00:44] IP: Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Yes, confirmed. Okay, fine. I'm totally off my game, because
it's only Monday.
[0:00:51] JR: Had this been Wednesday, you would have picked up on that immediately.
[0:00:54] IP: This would have been a much better thing. We're recording on Monday, the 18th of
December. Not our usual date of recording. We normally recorded on Wednesdays, but
Wednesday would be after the cutoff day for our editors, because they are going on Christmas
break. We are recording today, so that we can get the podcast off to them, so that we can have
it out for you this week.
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AVT 247 Transcript
This week, we've got a bunch of very interesting stories. One, I think more bizarre than
interesting, but certainly one we're going to follow, for as long as we can. Then next week, we
will do our standard end of the year clip show. That'll be fun. Thank you to everyone who has
written in over the week with their favorite episode throughout the year and suggestions and
requests for the new year.
The favorite episodes, there's a very clear top three. You'll have to stick around for next week to
see which episodes, you, dear listeners, have voted into the top three. I will say, that voting is
still open. Email us at podcast@fr24.com. Let us know what your favorite episode was
throughout this year, and anything you want to see in the podcast moving into next year. Jason,
my friend. I don't even know where to begin with this particular story.
[0:02:14] JR: You should begin at page one of the, wow, how many pages this is?
[0:02:21] IP: 24.
[0:02:21] JR: Oh, 24 pages. Yeah, half of it is just addendum to the stuff. But begin at the top,
because it's the only way we can go through this one.
[0:02:29] IP: The United States of America has charged Sergey Vladimirovich Ochigava with
being a stowaway. That's the top line, which is stowaways have happened before.
[0:02:44] JR: It happens. It happens. This isn't the super unusual part.
[0:02:49] IP: No, that certainly happens. Here's the fun part. He was a stowaway on SAS flight
931 from Copenhagen to Los Angeles. But he wasn't hiding. He was just on the plane.
[0:03:06] JR: Well, that's a twist.
[0:03:07] IP: He's memorable to the flight crew. He wasn't in the cargo hold. He wasn't hiding in
the wheel well, like we've seen in the past. He wasn't locked in the bathroom the whole time and
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AVT 247 Transcript
trying to hide. No, he was hanging out on the plane. Moved about the economy cabin.
Requested two meals during each meal service.
[0:03:24] JR: That's suspicious. That's the most suspicious thing on SAS. Nobody gets two
meals from SAS. Come on.
[0:03:30] IP: I wonder if he ordered all of his beverages at the same time.
[0:03:33] JR: Well, if you order a Coke later, I mean, they're going to know something’s
suspicious and they're going to detain you on arrival. Come on.
[0:03:41] IP: He also, and I'm quoting the charging document here, he also tried to eat the
chocolate that belonged to the cabin crew members.
[0:03:49] JR: Man, that's a no-no. Chocolate for the flight crew. That's sacred. You don't touch
that. You bring them chocolate. You do not eat the chocolate.
[0:03:57] IP: Exactly. He was on the flight from Copenhagen, gets off the plane in Los Angeles
after it parks at the gate and goes to customs. When he gets there, he doesn't have any
documents that he can give to the customs officer to be screened into the country. He initially
says that he has left his passport on the plane. They shuttled him over to customer service
agents, basically, to help coordinate getting him his passport off the aircraft, so that he can
come into the country. He says, he came in off the SAS flight from Copenhagen, and then they
asked what documents he leaves on the plane. He said, he left his passport on the plane.
They're trying to track it down and trying to track it down and they can't. While they're waiting, a
customs and border protection officer offered to begin the screening process. Basically, get him
pulled up in the system. Then when the passport is brought forward, they can just stamp it and
he can be on his way. They don't have to look at the passport and all that good stuff anymore.
When they tried to do that, they could not find him in any of their systems.
[0:05:08] JR: A ghost.
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[0:05:09] IP: He was not listed as a passenger on SK931, or any other flight arriving, or
departing the United States. They asked him for his name, his birthday, the flight information,
still couldn't find anything. They call up the supervisor and the supervisor says, “Okay, let's take
a look at what we got going on here.” Inside of his bags, after they start searching his bags, they
find a Russian and Israeli identification card. Not passports, but identification cards used for
domestic travel.
They go through this and used that information, still can't find anything. He's got a partial photo
of a passport that has the name on it and the information on it, the passport number and things
like that, but does not have the picture. It's like, cut off. It's got all the information, except the
picture.
[0:06:12] JR: Suspicious. Okay.
[0:06:14] IP: This is getting stranger and stranger and stranger. They're trying to figure out, did
he ever apply for Visa? Because if he's a Russian citizen, he needs to have a Visa. If he's
Israeli, he needs to have an ESTA, the, what is it? Electronic system for travel authorization.
Basically, you fill out a form that says, “I'm coming to the country.” If you're from a country where
that's okay, they say, “Okay, we'll see you in a little bit.”
He's never applied for, or received a Visa. They checked in and with the CBP central office, and
they have no idea who he is, where he is, or why he's here. He certainly wasn't supposed to be
on SK931. Now they're saying, “Hey, looks like, we've got a stowaway.” The SAS station
manager gets involved. They confirm that everyone was accounted for. When they look at the
load sheet for the aircraft, it turns out, they had an extra person on board.
[0:07:16] JR: They did do a count, apparently, according to the criminal complaint, they did tally
up, or they did count the passengers onboard, but they didn't aggregate their counts as if they
only did it for weight and balance. Had they potentially added up the numbers before taking off,
they possibly would have found this issue in Copenhagen before departing to the US. I've
actually been on a flight where this very thing happened.
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It was a Lufthansa flight out of JFK. It was an odd situation, where there were two passengers
by the same name, both on our flight to Munich, but one of them was supposed to be on the
flight to Frankfurt. There are times where – yeah, that was a real weird three hours onboard that
plane, before we were able to get out of there and figure it out. Yeah, this stuff happens. Maybe
this is some procedure that SAS needs to get tightened up. I don't know if that's a common thing
at airlines that they actually tally up the number, total number of passengers onboard and then
run it against the manifest. That's a question I don't have the answer to.
[0:08:17] IP: I guess, the biggest question right now is how did he get on the plane in
Copenhagen?
[0:08:22] JR: Yeah, not a huge mystery. There have been stowaways before, and there have
been serial stowaways before that make almost a game out of getting onboard the aircraft.
[0:08:32] IP: My good friend in Chicago. Why can't I remember her name? The name will come
to me. Marilyn Hartman is her name. She's for 20 years, has been able to just wander into
airplanes based out of Chicago. In this particular system, I having recently flown through
Copenhagen out of the gates that the US flights leave from, possible, sure. But you would have
to be – this gentleman said that he hadn't slept for three days and he had no idea how he ended
up here. I'm not sure I believe that. Because you would have to be of pretty sound mind to work
your way around the automated gates.
[0:09:15] JR: Yeah. There's also some information in the criminal complaint that he actually
gave permission to, I guess, this was CBP to go through his phone and look at what's in the
camera roll recent. What have you been taking pictures of recently? The most recent picture
was, they quote, a photo of television screens displaying flight information for flights flying all
over the world, including to Amsterdam, Munich, Lisbon, London, etc. It was in Danish. He was
taking pictures of the departure board. Maybe just wanted to pick the right one. If you're totally
out of it and don't really know what you're doing, you're probably not taking pictures of the
departure board. I don't know.
[0:09:53] IP: Yeah, that was weird. Although, the criminal complaint does – I mean, this is all
part of basically, a form that agents have to work their way through. Everything has to be logical
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and airtight. I appreciate this. I would just like to inform our listeners who may not know this, that
open-source research revealed that CPH is the biggest airport in Denmark and that Danish is
the official language of Denmark.
[0:10:19] JR: Oh, that's nice. Good stuff.
[0:10:20] IP: Who knew?
[0:10:21] JR: It's even as detailed as telling us, the phone was a black iPhone SE with a silver
back, and they even give us the IMEI number. That's a lot of detail. Dude's going to need a new
phone after this.
[0:10:33] IP: I think he's going to need a lot of stuff. This happened on the 4th of November, but
we're just finding out about it now as reporting on the court documents came out earlier this
week. Certainly, a case to follow, because I want to see what happens to the guy. Where do
they send him back to? Because they have to figure out who he is, right, to be able to figure out
where does – I mean, do you just send him back –
[0:10:58] JR: I don't know.
[0:10:58] IP: - to Denmark?
[0:10:58] JR: Can they just send him back to Denmark? Does it become the terminal situation,
where he just lives in LAX forever? I don't know. I mean, there are worse terminals to live in.
[0:11:10] IP: Yeah. I mean, yeah, Tom Bradley's not a bad place to –
[0:11:12] JR: TB’s not too bad. Better than Newark.
[0:11:14] IP: Ooh, ouch.
[0:11:15] JR: Can you imagine living out the rest of your life in Newark, Terminal B? Oh.
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[0:11:20] IP: It would change that Tom Hanks movie from a somewhat of a comedy to a very,
very dark tragedy. Yeah, so something to follow and we'll figure out how this happened,
hopefully, without speculating any further. We'll just leave it there and say, “Hey, something to
follow up on when this works its way through the courts.” Hopefully, we'll find out more. Jason, if
you're Southwest, your planes are heavier and your pockets are lighter today, to the tune of,
well, to the made up number of a 140 million dollars.
[0:11:56] JR: That's the headline figure. The one headline, the DOT wants everyone to see. But
let's dive into it a little deeper. Tell me more.
[0:12:05] IP: Well, so the headline number, a 140 million, is 30 times higher than the previous
largest fine. But none of that means anything, because of how the fine actually breaks down.
The fine is –
[0:12:19] JR: Let’s backtrack a bit. What happened? What is this fine for?
[0:12:23] IP: The fine is for the meltdown that Southwest experienced over the Christmas
holiday period last year. Over a multi-day period in December of last year, Southwest canceled
almost 17,000 flights and left 2 million passengers without a way to get to their destination. It
was terrible PR. Congress yelled and screamed. CEO Bob Jordan said – well, didn't say much
of anything. Then he came out and said something and then he went away again and then
finally said, “You know, okay, we need to do better.”
It seems like, they've done better this year, but it's taken the DOT a year to figure out how much
it was going to cost Southwest. While the top line figure is a 140 million dollars, that's not quite
how this all breaks out. Because Southwest is getting a 33-million-dollar credit from the DOT
against the 140 million for offering air miles to passengers that were affected by the meltdown.
Then Southwest will pay 35 million in cash to the Department of Transportation over three
years. Then, and this is the one that is just silly to me, Southwest must set aside 72 million for
future passenger disruptions.
[0:14:01] JR: Hmm.
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[0:14:02] IP: Which will be paid out, how Jason?
[0:14:03] JR: The deal with this is Southwest is now committed with the thing. I guess, they've
probably been forced to commit to offering delayed passengers, I believe, of three hours, or
more a $75 Southwest fund bucks credit applicable to future Southwest flights. That is my take
on it. We'll have to double check. But I believe it is just a $75 credit for future flights. It doesn't
really make sense that it's 72 million aside for future disruption. If it's a credit, I guess it must be
in the form of refund. Don't really know. We'll figure that out. All of this is just coming out today.
Yeah, that sounds like a lot of money. But right here in the US, another airline a long time ago
suffered a very similar catastrophe over a holiday weekend. That would be JetBlue, way back in
2007 with the Valentine's Day massacre that actually resulted in the ousting of the founder and
CEO of JetBlue at the time, because things went so wrong. At the time, the DOT didn't force
them to, but JetBlue enacted its own, what they called customer bill of rights. That is almost two
decades old at this point, but is way more generous than the $75 Southwest is offering here. It
goes up to hundreds of dollars, if your flight is delayed six hours or more, but it's increasing. It
ratchets up in cost as the delays, or the cancellation stagger. This $75 blanket, if you're delayed
three hours or more, you'll get $75. It's pretty weak, but it's something in a country that typically
offers no consumer protections, whatsoever, for the most part.
[0:15:44] IP: For its part, Southwest called their new policy, a new industry leading policy.
Apparently, they think it's better? I don't know.
[0:15:56] JR: The DOT thingy here says that Southwest, though, it's starting April 30th, 2024, so
don't get delayed before that. For at least a three-year period, so this may just be three years,
Southwest will provide vouchers of at least $75 upon request. When controllable, cancellations
or significant delays cost customers to reach their destinations three hours or more after
scheduled arrival time. There’s a lot of –
[0:16:19] IP: It’s even worse. It's even worse than –
[0:16:21] JR: There’s a lot of wishy-washy statements here. It's at least 75.
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[0:16:24] IP: Upon request?
[0:16:25] JR: Upon request, which means they're probably not going to be proactive about it.
While JetBlue is, I have gotten vouchers from JetBlue while still sitting on the aircraft. At least,
$75 means it's going to be $75 and not a penny more, and it is a voucher. It is not a refund. It is
a voucher that you can only use if you want to put yourself back on another Southwest flight at a
later date. This is really better than nothing. But compared to EU261, it is practically nothing. It's
somehow more than Delta, American, United, Air Canada, Aeromexico, than any of these
airlines really offer, because they don't have any proactive, hard and fast rules of you will get
compensation due to X. I don't know. It's better than nothing, but they're not doing it because
they feel like doing it. This is definitely part of the negotiations with DOT resulted in this
outcome.
[0:17:22] IP: I get everybody wants to claim that win. DOT says, “It's the largest fine ever. We're
putting the screws to the airline if they mess your schedule up. This could have been avoided.”
When Southwest is trying to spend, oh, it's customer-friend –
[0:17:38] JR: There is one thing here that this in total, the headlining number, is an
astronomically high fine compared to anything else the DOT has issued in the past. It does send
a message to airlines in the US saying, “Shape up, or we're going to hit you with a very large
fine.” I hope we don't see any operational collapse quite as dramatic as Southwest last year that
that really shouldn't ever happen. It does put the other airlines on notice saying, “Hey, if you do
this, if this happens to you, here are the numbers you're probably going to be looking at. It is not
pretty, though.” Most of them could be easily afford it.
[0:18:16] IP: It's not as pretty as previous fines, as far as airlines are concerned, but there's no
real penalty here.
[0:18:25] JR: No. What they needed to do to get out of this and make everyone look good.
That's the outcome. It's better than nothing.
[0:18:31] IP: Hey, that's our motto here. It's better than nothing.
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[0:18:34] JR: It does also say that Southwest Airlines will issue a minimum of 30 million dollars
in vouchers from April 30th, 2024 to April 29th, 2025. Each year thereafter, of the 30 million
dollars in vouchers spent each year, Southwest will receive an offset of 24 million from the
assessed civil penalty. What happens if Southwest just runs a phenomenal operation through
2025 and just doesn't cancel any flights and doesn't have any delays? They still have to issue
30 million dollars in vouchers? Do they just pick passengers out of a hat and say, “Hey, you
blocked in 34 seconds late. Here’s 75 bucks.”
[0:19:12] IP: There you go. Done. Sold.
[0:19:16] JR: Why not?
[0:19:18] IP: It's all fun and games here as we close out the year. We finally get to close out the
year by saying, Turkish Airlines has ordered some planes.
[0:19:31] JR: All right, finally. Finally, for real. This one has been kicking around for months and
months and months and months. Everyone was right. They were just dotting their eyes,
crossing their T's, doing whatever they needed. I don't know, doing some currency conversion,
playing financing, but Turkish has ordered 220 firm orders, plus another 100 options for 50
A350-900s and 15 A350-1000s, as well as five A350 freighters, which is nice. Plus 150, plus
100 options for the A321neo. Turkish went shopping.
[0:20:08] IP: They certainly did. This is on top of the other smaller widebody orders that they've
placed earlier this year. We'd been expecting – I think we started talking about this in May,
ahead of the Paris Air Show in June, that Turkish was about to close a hundreds of airplanes
deal. Paris Air Show came and went, and no large order. I think they ordered a dozen or so
aircraft at that point. Then we said, okay, we'll just see what we can see for the Dubai Air Show
in November. That came and went and nothing happened there. Then mid-December comes
around. Turkish says, “Yes, 220 very large aircraft, please.” Firm orders.
[0:21:00] JR: Okay. It'll be done.
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[0:21:01] IP: Take a week again. This bulks out Turkish Airlines’ Airbus order book. They now
have 504 Airbus aircraft on order, and puts them well into the next decade. A big growth for the
Turkish Airlines fleet.
[0:21:19] JR: 500 and something. That's a lot.
[0:21:22] IP: They want to double their fleet. I mean, and then go from there. Turkish Airlines
has big ambitions. Ordering 58 A330s, that's a good way to show it.
[0:21:33] JR: Yeah. Well, 500-plus aircraft from Airbus. That's almost a year's worth of absolute
production from Airbus. I mean, they delivered a little over 600 so far through November. Yeah,
that's the better part of a year of production time to solely devoted to Turkish. I think we've seen
things like this in the past from other very large airlines, but it's just crazy to quantify it like that.
Just a year of Airbus doing nothing, but building planes for one customer.
[0:22:00] IP: Yeah. Then on top of the massive order book that Turkish is building, they're also
going a bit further afield. Jason, where is Turkish Airlines about to fly next?
[0:22:11] JR: I believe, they already fly to, but the deal here is that international airlines flying to
Australia face – I think you could classify it as onerous restrictions on where and when and how
frequently they can fly. A new deal announced just a couple days ago by Australia, basically,
gives Turkish airlines the keys to the kingdom and they will be really increasing the number of
fifth freedom flights. That's basically, they have to add a stop along the way. They can't just
operate Istanbul to Sydney, or Melbourne. They have to add on an additional stop, but it'll
increase from two 21 flights immediately with immediate effect and then it will increase to 28
flights next year and 35 by 2025.
This report from the financial review, which I guess is from Australia, says that they will overtake
Qatar as the most frequently visiting international airline, which currently has 28 flights. This is a
big deal. Australia is very protectionary when it comes to its homegrown Qantas, which I know
people in Australia don't really love Qantas right now. It is a pretty big deal to open the doors so
widely for an international airline in Australia.
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[0:23:23] IP: Yeah. I mean, the interesting thing is that this open embrace of Turkish stands at
odds with the treatment of Qatar Airways that recently transpired, where they said, “No. Sorry,
Qatar. You cannot expand beyond the current allotment.” They said, “Well, we're doing it for a
number of reasons.” But also, Qantas was against it. The minister said, “Oh, it's against our
national interests.” This is interesting to me that so quickly, they would turn around and say,
“Okay, Turkish. No problem.”
[0:24:00] JR: Okay. Some deal had been made for Turkish. Honestly, good for really anyone
looking to get a decent fare in and out of Australia. It's seemingly out of nowhere.
[0:24:10] IP: Yeah. I mean, this really opens up, or will open up once Turkish starts flying, travel
to Europe, because eventually, you'll have a nonstop to Istanbul. But from the beginning, it looks
like, they're going to go through Singapore. The other option right now is Qantas. I mean, you've
got two flights into Europe, I think only two, Rome and London at this point. I mean, Istanbul
opens up an incredible number of connections to, I mean, it's what? 300 or somewhat airports
connected to Istanbul. I mean, it's not bad if you can swing it.
[0:24:46] JR: Yeah, good for them.
[0:24:47] IP: Not a bad product. Speaking of Australia, Qantas's first A220 is currently on its
way home. It's somewhere in between Honolulu and Fiji at the moment.
[0:25:00] JR: That's nice. This is the one with the stunning special livery.
[0:25:05] IP: Absolutely. Yes.
[0:25:07] JR: I don't recall the name of it, but it is pretty stunning. Yeah, Qantas is going to need
a few extra planes to compete with Turkish now, I guess.
[0:25:16] IP: Well, this one won't be competing with Turkish. This is the first A220-300 for
QantasLink. The aircraft large, the A220, is slated to replace the 717s for Qantas. Basically,
doubling the range. You can fly transcontinental in Australia and 25% less fuel burn. Not a bad
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deal. Plus, the A220 is just a wonderful plane to fly on. I'm sure that current 717 passengers are
looking forward to switching over to the A220.
VHX4A is just reaching cruising altitude after departing Honolulu about 45 minutes ago. It's
flying Honolulu, then to Nadi and Fiji, and then from Fiji onward to Sydney. Arriving, I guess,
Wednesday. Crossing the international date line still doesn't make any sense to me. I believe, it
will arrive in Sydney on Wednesday. A good start to Qantas’s A220 aspirations. Jason, let's go
about as far as we can from Australia and head back to the Mediterranean and talk about
Lufthansa Group, which is set to resume flights to Tel Aviv coming up soon.
[0:26:36] JR: All right. Well, this came out of nowhere, I think, but it seems very calculated by
the Lufthansa Group. They will be resuming service to Tel Aviv starting January 8th, 2024,
available starting to book today, actually, which would be December 18th. They're going to start
off modestly only with Airbus A320 family aircraft. No more A330s, or any widebodies at all
heading over to Tel Aviv. They will start off with 4X weekly, Lufthansa flights from Frankfurt, 3X
weekly Lufthansa flights from Munich, 8X weekly Austrian flights from Vienna, and 5X weekly
Swiss flights from Zurich. A gradual ramp up that only represents a 30% capacity compared to, I
guess, you could say, this time last year. That's not a lot of capacity, but better than nothing,
which is what most airlines are operating there right now.
[0:27:32] IP: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that they're ramping back up, leading the way. I
assume, once Lufthansa Group has restarted, we're going to see other airlines come back in,
maybe other airlines waiting to see how things go for Lufthansa. How that service looks before
they reenter Tel Aviv. It's something to keep an eye on for sure, and to see if Lufthansa makes
any changes after the 8th.
The US IRS clarified what counts towards the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Credit. That was part of
the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The credit is $1.25 for each gallon of Sustainable Aviation
Fuel, and that goes up to $1.75, depending on how much of a life cycle reduction in greenhouse
gas emissions that fuel provides. The deal here is that the law said, the ICAO's CORSIA
standard was how the ICAO's carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation.
It's aviation we have to have a complicated acronym. The law also allows fuels meeting other
“similar ways of reducing emissions as qualifying.”
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[0:28:59] JR: Uh-oh.
[0:29:00] IP: This is where things get fun, because the IRS has now set forth what's going to
qualify as part of this law. The law will allow, says the IRS, a modified version of a method for
calculating life cycle emissions that there's an argument to be made that it's not very good. The
Argonne National Laboratory's GREET method, the greenhouse gases, regulated emissions,
and energy use and transportation method, and other Greek-based methods don't satisfy the
statutory requirements. But the Energy Department and others are working to come out with a
new method that could be available in 2024.
The current GREET method basically comes under fire for possibly encouraging crop-based
sustainable aviation fuel. Think corn-based ethanol, sugar cane, and the like, where you're
reducing the emissions of the final product fuel itself. But to get there, you could be turning over
forestry land to grow more crops, so that you can then have the feedstock for the fuels, and so
on and so forth.
[0:30:29] JR: Exactly what you don't want.
[0:30:31] IP: Right. It'll be interesting to see what the modified GREET method looks like. The
Environmental Defense Fund is obviously apoplectic.  The International Committee for
Sustainable Transportation, I think – the ICCT. I definitely got that acronym. I got the acronym
right, but I got the name of the organization wrong. However, they are less upset and leaning on
the modified method that could come across next year. It'll be interesting to see when that's
released, what does in fact qualify for the sustainable aviation fuel credit of $1.25 for each
gallon.
You get more towards the credit up to $1.75 for each percentage point more reduction than 50%
over the current carbon emissions. Interesting stuff, important stuff, but one of the things where
we could end up with something that's a bit more watered down than would have been optimal.
[0:31:39] JR: Okay. Okay. Definitely going to have to distill this one for a little bit. It seems like
progress, but not exactly the progress we would really want.
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[0:31:50] IP: No. No. It seems like, two steps forward, a half step back maybe. But we get to
swim in all of these acronyms. CORSIA, GREET, LGGE, which I think is the –
[0:32:02] JR: That’s a good one.
[0:32:04] IP: Which is just me forcing life cycle greenhouse gas emissions into an acronym
rather than an initialism.
[0:32:09] JR: Rolls right off the tongue.
[0:32:11] IP: It does. That's a story that we will follow into the new year. This one is rather
interesting to me. A couple weeks ago, we talked about Mexicana getting its first aircraft. We all
thought it was going to be a 737, but it turned out it was an Embraer ERJ 145. This week, we
see the first 737 for Mexicana in a Mexicana livery. Maybe.
[0:32:39] JR: Okay. For real this time. Yeah. Maybe the other plane was a decoy plane.
[0:32:42] IP: For real this time. It’s a real 737.
[0:32:43] JR: That was just to see if the paint brushes work and they could do it right and get in
on a plane. This is the real plane, right?
[0:32:50] IP: I guess. You would think that they've painted the 737-800. It's ready to go. It says,
Mexicana on it, both on the fuselage and on the tail. They didn't mess it up one way or the other.
It transferred from the Mexican military. All going with what we thought was going to happen. It's
still bizarre to me that they're restarting this airline, basically using the military to just fly a
commercial airline.
[0:33:21] JR: Yeah, it's not a great plan.
[0:33:22] IP: I don’t understand any of these.
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AVT 247 Transcript
[0:33:24] JR: I don't think anyone in the industry would say, “Yes, this is a good plan. This is
what you should do. This is a plan for success.” No, no. At least it's not an E145 anymore.
They've got that going for them.
[0:33:37] IP: They do have that going for them. They've got a couple ex-Mexican Air Force
737s. One, two, three so far that have been transferred to where they're doing the painting.
They should have one, two, three, four more. What's going to be really interesting is, what do
the cabins look like?
[0:34:02] JR: Hmm. I assume they will be pretty basic.
[0:34:04] IP: That'll be fun to see. Jason has graciously volunteered to be on the inaugural
flight.
[0:34:12] JR: Sure.
[0:34:12] IP: Jason, thank you for that. I appreciate that.
[0:34:14] JR: You're welcome.
[0:34:15] IP: I'm looking forward to your –
[0:34:15] JR: Wait. What?
[0:34:16] IP: I'm looking forward to your full reports.
[0:34:18] JR: I should listen closer before I agree to whatever you're telling me to do.
[0:34:21] IP: No, you should just agree to do it, no matter what.
[0:34:23] JR: All right.
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AVT 247 Transcript
[0:34:25] IP: I think we've all learned our lesson here. A thing that I would love to do, if I were
looking for a job in aviation and I was an engineer, this is the job that I would be applying for.
[0:34:36] JR: What is it? Tell me more.
[0:34:38] IP: There are currently open positions to become a hurricane hunter aeronautical
engineer.
[0:34:44] JR: Oh.
[0:34:45] IP: Flying on the NOAA P3s, and/or Gulfstream G4, you can apply at the moment.
Link in the show notes for anyone who wants to apply for this position. I think you absolutely
should. I misread the position notes, because I was like, “Oh, you just get to work with the
hurricane hunter planes and all that kind of stuff.” Jason goes, “No, no, no, no, no. You get to fly
on the planes.” I said, even more exciting.
[0:35:11] JR: That's my interpretation of the job listing. They said support –
[0:35:14] IP: I mean, you read the listing. I mean, yeah. Yeah, I misinterpreted that. Then you
reread it to me. It turns out that I can, in fact, understand English language words.
[0:35:25] JR: Yeah. If you enjoy extra turbulent flights, this is the job for you.
[0:35:32] IP: If you're interested, please go apply. If you are going to apply, let us know,
because we would love to hear what that A, what the process is like, and B, hope that you get
the job, so that you can tell us about what the job is like. We would love to talk to you.
[0:35:44] JR: Yeah. It’d be nice.
[0:35:45] IP: Go apply, get the job and then come and talk to us. All right. Jason, we made it
through the entire year.
[0:35:53] JR: Almost. Almost.
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AVT 247 Transcript
[0:35:54] IP: How about that? Almost.
[0:35:55] JR: That’s good.
[0:35:56] IP: Well, we made it through the entire year of podcasting.
[0:35:58] JR: Yeah, there you go. We're done.
[0:36:00] IP: There's still more time left in the year. Like I said, at the beginning of the show,
next week, we'll carry through with our tradition of reviewing some of our most interesting
conversations throughout the year. There is still time to let us know what those conversations
are, as far as you are concerned, email us at podcast@fr24.com and let us know what you
think. This will wrap up our last new episode, our last full episode for 2023. Then we'll be back in
the new year with new episodes and a whole lot more aviation to talk about. Thank you,
everyone, so very much for listening throughout the year. We so very much appreciate it. We're
looking forward to another great year in 2024. We will talk to you then. I am Ian Petchenik, here,
as always with –
[0:36:52] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
© 2023 AvTalk 18